Streams of Living Water

“Make every home a mission station” – such was the statement I recently heard a fellow minister make as he encouraged his congregation to reach out and grow. In the intervening time, I have spent a lot of mental energy thinking through what he meant, working out how that may apply in our situation, and then communicating it to you. In my reading of the Bible and my reading of Free Church History, I soon realised that in times of God’s revival blessing, every Christian home was considered a mission station – a station for the advance of the Kingdom of God. And I wondered what the impact of such attitudes to the growth of the Kingdom of God, and to our homes, would look like in practice in St. V’s. And so, I thought, in preparation for launching out into the deep of home evangelism, I would prepare you by communicating the Word behind the Work – the Vision behind the Mission.

Tonight, I want to begin a 3 study examination into the theory of and practice of Home evangelism, particular that evangelism which uses the book, “Christianity Explored”. Tonight, I want to look at the theory behind the eminently Biblical and Historical practice of evangelism in the home – i.e. why to do it. Next week, I want to look at the practice of evangelism in the home – i.e. how to do it. Then, in our final week together, we will look at Study 1 of the Christianity Explored Book and do it together in a mock-up setting. So tonight therefore, I want to explore with you the Biblical and Historical theory behind home evangelism. And I want to make 3 statements: first, God commands us to evangelize; secondly, God resources us to evangelize and lastly, Our History is Filled with Evangelism.
[A] God Commands Us to Evangelize
God commands us, whoever we are, to be living epistles, written by God and read of all men. We are to live as pointers to Christ – that is His command – to disobey, for whatever reason, is disobedience. There are two elements to this command of God:
1. God Calls Everyone to Play a Role in Evangelism – one of the most pernicious misconceptions we have is to believe that only the minister has the ability or the right to evangelize. We may be tempted to think that we pay him to do our evangelism for us. But to think that is sacramental and closer to Roman Catholicism than the religion of the New Testament and our Reformed Fathers. The Apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 3:15 – “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” He’s not writing that to ministers only, but to all Christians – to me and to you. The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 – “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” In other words, to whoever God has reconciled to Himself through Christ, He has given a ministry of reconciliation. He reconciles us so that we may transmit to others the message of reconciliation through Christ – He calls us to evangelize. The only people who are excluded therefore, from their responsibility to evangelize are those who have never been reconciled to God in the first place – those who are still His enemies – those who are not Christians. But if you are a Christian, you are to play a role in evangelism, whatever that role may be, and there are many as we shall see later. Evangelism is not an option – it is all part and parcel of the privileges and responsibilities of professing the name of Christ.
2. The World Needs Everyone to Play a Role in Evangelism – It only takes a few moments of careful reflection to realise how much the world out there needs us to evangelize – to tell them the good news of Jesus Christ and what He has done on the cross for sinners like us. There are 3 outstanding things the world outside needs to know which must motivate us to evangelize:
a. Heaven and Hell are Real – there is a real place called Heaven where joy, comfort and the presence of Christ are with us eternally. But there is also a real place called Hell where pain, agony and the absence of the presence of Christ torment us eternally. How much do we care about our fellow human beings if we refuse to tell them about hell and the wrath of God?
b. Everyone Matters to God – in Luke 15:1-32, we are presented with the stories of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost (or Prodigal) Son. In each case, the point of the story is to emphasize how much the lost matter to God. No one is expendable to Him, but all are precious enough to go looking for. Shall those then, who matter to God, matter little to us? Shall we who are Christians only because God didn’t turn His back on us, turn our backs on others just as needy as ourselves?
c. Everyone has a right to Jesus – I know that this sounds a controversial statement – it sounds Arminian – but it was actually Scottish Reformed Theologians like Thomas Boston, Ebenezer Erskine and Thomas Chalmers who have most fully developed the idea that Jesus is the Saviour for all men – He is the only Saviour any man will ever have, and if they don’t have Jesus, they won’t be saved. But that doesn’t stop us from proclaiming the good news of the offer of the Gospel to all men – to paraphrase Mark 16:15 – “Go into all the world and tell them that you have good news for them.” Such good news of the forgiveness of sin – will we keep it to ourselves or will we spread it around?
And so, God commands us to evangelize, and our evangelism is Glasgow’s greatest need.
[B] God Resources Us to Evangelize
If you are anything like me, when you are presented with a daunting task like that of evangelism, you throw up your hands and protest your weakness – ‘but I can’t; I’m not able’. Once you begin to think that way, you’ve committed a grievous sin against God – for isn’t He the God who supplies all our needs, whose grace is sufficient for us and whose power is made perfect in our weakness? To refuse to evangelise hiding behind the excuse of inability is really to blame God’s lack of provision – but surely, we don’t want to do that do we?  St. Augustine once prayed, “Lord command what you give and give what you command” – in other words, when God commands us to do something, He always gives us the resources we need to do what He has commanded us to. And when it comes to evangelism in 21^st Century Glasgow, He has given us everything we need to spread the good news of Jesus Christ.
1. Contacts – some of us feel that we have nobody we can evangelise to. Of course, a little bit of reflection will reveal how wrong we are. As I see it, God has put each of us in a sphere of contact – a sphere of influence over others – and He wants us to use our contacts to spread the Gospel. In the Bible we see this working at different levels:
a. Family – in Acts 16:34 we read of the Philippian Jailer, how, when he was converted he brought his whole family to the feet of Paul and Silas to be baptized by them. All of us have families, either close or extended, in which we can share the Gospel and invite them to come to know Jesus as Lord.
b. Friends – in Acts 10:24, the Roman Centurion Cornelius awaits the visit of the Apostle Peter and we read, “Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends”. All of us have friends, most of them probably Christian, but many of them not – have we called them together to hear the Word of God and receive the offer of salvation through Christ?
c. Neighbours – in John 4, Jesus has been witnessing to a Samaritan woman, who herself becomes the first Samaritan evangelist, for we read in vs. 28, “so the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’” She invited her neighbours and those she lived beside to meet Jesus.
d. Workmates – in Matthew 10:9 onwards, we read of Jesus calling the tax collector Matthew to follow Him, and then, in the next verse, we read of Jesus reclining in the house He was staying in with other tax-collectors. Who invited these other tax-collectors? Aren’t we meant to understand that it was probably the Matthew who had been so recently called who had invited his colleagues to the house in which Jesus was – to hear the Gospel?
e. Strangers – only in the last instance, I believe, are we to have recourse to the evangelism of complete strangers – ‘Go … to all creation’.
At the end of the day, our family, friends, neighbours, workmates and others, need to hear the Gospel. Will they not condemn us on the day of judgement if we failed to tell them about heaven and hell, salvation and condemnation – and all because we were ashamed?
2. Location – we tend to think that evangelism only takes place in a building called ‘the church’ and only on ‘a Sunday’. How wrong we are – in fact, I would suggest that although we do it, the Sunday worship services of the Church are for Christians to worship God. Rather, as you look through the Gospels and the New Testament, you realise that evangelism was rarely done ‘in the Church’. This is for two reasons: first, there were no such buildings in the New Testament as what we call ‘churches’, and secondly, the Christians knew that the Gospel wasn’t a message confined to Sunday nor to the trained elite, but they had such love for Christ and an urgency for souls, that they witnessed in all places and at all times. And so, in Luke 14:23 we hear of the master of the house saying, ‘go out into the highways and country lanes and make them come in’. Again, in Acts, evangelism was either done in two settings as Paul says in Acts 20:20 – “you know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly  and from house to house.” So we find Him evangelising in the public forums in Athens, but also in the confines of house churches, such as Nympha’s in Colossians 4:15. God gave us houses, and we are to use them for Him – not for ourselves. I live in the St. Vincent Street Manse – it is the home of my family. But it’s not my house, it is yours. You might pay the mortgage on your houses, but they aren’t yours, they are God’s. So will you use them for His glory and for the cause of the Gospel. And also, will we take the opportunities of the public arenas – the coffee shops, the university debating floors – to spread forth the good news of salvation through Christ?
3. Attitude – we have already noticed how Matthew invited Jesus and other tax collectors together for a meal – the other tax collectors met with Jesus over a meal. Romans 12:13 commands us to show hospitality – this is especially true for the elders of a congregation who are to be hospitable. What is hospitality? I do not that hospitality is the same thing as entertaining, and therefore, it doesn’t involve complicated meals – it involves making a meal stretch – it involves inviting people into your home. That’s what the early Church was all about – hospitality in the home. What is our attitude to our homes? Are they our castles or our workshops? Are they ours or Gods?
4. Style – what kind of styles can we employ in our evangelism, or in the way we share the Gospel with others? Is there only one style which is acceptable? Now clearly, I believe, because the Bible teaches it, that it is primarily through the foolishness of preaching that God saves sinners – but even in that preaching, let alone in the supplementary task of home evangelism, there must be differences in style. I’m drawing these different styles from the introductory guide to Christianity Explored, where they list 6 styles through which the message of the Gospel can be communicated:
a. Confrontational – this is where small talk is minimised, the speaker gets right to the point and is confident. A Biblical example of this is Peter’s speech on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2.
b. Intellectual – this is where there is analysis and logical debate, and the mind is more important than feelings. A Biblical example of this is Paul’s debate on Mars Hill in Acts 17.
c. Testimonial – this is where you basically tell your own story about how God saved you, and how, since He has saved you, He can save others. A Biblical example of this is the Blind Man in John 9:1-33.
d. Interpersonal – this is where we are far more conversational, friendship-oriented and focussing on people. A Biblical example of this is where Jesus calls Levi to follow Him in Luke 5:27-29.
e. Invitational – this is where we are hospitable, gregarious and we ask people to come and hear the good news. A Biblical example of this is the woman at the well in John 4:4-30. A practical way of saying this would be – ‘if you feel that you evangelise in your own house, take people to church and let me do the evangelism there’.
f. Serving – this is where we express love in actions more than words and we see the value in performing menial tasks. A Biblical example of this is Dorcas in Acts 9:36. However, I would caution that this serving evangelism has limits: chiefly the famous Francis of Assissi quote – ‘evangelise always, speak if you have to’. The more I have been thinking about that, the more I reckon that is just plain wrong – God communicates to us through speech – we have a written word. If we are to evangelise properly, we must speak. However, this serving-type evangelism does have an important role to play in the building of teams. For example, we ran a Christianity explored course in our house a couple of years ago, and a rather quiet lady in the congregation came along and spent the whole time in the kitchen washing dishes. That’s why she came – to serve, thereby freeing others to speak. You may feel that you don’t have what it takes to speak for Christ, but surely you can make a cup of tea?
5. Promise – the most remarkable resources God has given us in this task of evangelism are His promises. Let’s just consider two: first, from the Old Testament in Isaiah 55:10-11, where God says, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” You may think when you speak in the name of Christ that your words are worthless, but in the power of God, they will not come back to God empty.  Secondly, and more solemnly, in Matthew 28:18-20 where Jesus says – “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me; go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” The authority in your witness is not yours, but Christ’s. But the solemn thing is this – the promise of Jesus here to be with His people is conditional upon their obedience to His command. It is as they go He will be with them. As we open our mouths in obedience to the command of Jesus, He will be with us.
Don’t worry that I haven’t mentioned prayer or the Bible – these will come next week. But this week, I want to drive home to us that evangelism in the home is absolutely Biblical, and that none of us can dare use the excuse that we cannot. Perhaps we need to be trained and our gifts identified – but the truth is that with the Lord’s help, we can and we must.
[C] Our History is Filled with Evangelism
I want to close by very briefly answering the typical Free Church Question – “but we’ve never done it that way before”. Anything new is considered suspect. The problem is that home evangelism isn’t a new thing – I’ve already proved it was done in apostolic, New Testament days, and now I want to close by showing you that it was exemplified in two great historical periods: first, in the Puritans, and secondly, in the 19^th Century Free Church.
1. The Puritan Example – the great 17^th Century Puritan of Kidderminster ‘Richard Baxter’, wrote what has become a text book for all Free Church ministers. It is called, ‘the Reformed Pastor’. Half of the book is given over to the practice of Catechising – namely, elders going into people’s homes and inquiring as to their spiritual health. The modern equivalent of the Puritan practice of catechising is the home Bible Study, as led by a senior, mature, Christian – so it doesn’t just become a pooling of ignorance. Richard Baxter gives us 17 reasons why we should do home Bible study (and by extension, home evangelism through Bible study). I’m not going to give you the 17, but just to mention 3:
a. It will be a most hopeful means of the conversion of sinners
b. It will essentially promote the edification of saints
c. It will make our public preaching better understood by our people
To say, ‘it’s never been done this way’ is an untruth – it was being done this way by our Puritan forefathers. And Richard Baxter writes, “I know that preaching the Gospel publicly is the most excellent means, because we speak to many at once. But it is usually far more effectual to preach it privately to a particular sinner.”
2. The Free Church Example – more pointedly, it has been done this way in the Free Church as recently as the 19^th Century in Glasgow. I know that most of you are tired of me talking about Andrew Bonar – after all, what does he have to do with us? He lived a long time ago. But let’s remember that Cathie Beattie, who is a member with us here in St. V’s – her in-laws worshipped in Andrew Bonar’s Church. That takes us back to the late 19^th Century in one generation. Bonar had a central worship service on the Sunday morning at which over a thousand people were present. On a Sunday evening, he had divided his congregation up into 21 districts, each under the leadership of an elder, and during the winter months, each district would hold its own meeting in a house or home of its choice. These meetings would be catechetical – that is, dialogue – questions and answers.
To say then, ‘it’s never been done this way’ is to have a very short memory. The Church in Finnieston grew exponentially under Andrew Bonar’s ministry; the Church in Kidderminister grew exponentially under Richard Baxter’s ministry. Can such things happen again? Yes they can – if we stay true to the Scriptures and return to the lessons they can teach us – yes, reapplying them into today’s Scotland, but willing to do what’s necessary to spread the Good News of Jesus.
I’m not going to ask people to raise their physical hands to show whether they are willing to be involved in this great task; but I’m going to ask you to raise the hand of your heart and say, ‘here am I, Lord. I’ll obey your call. I’ll open my home. I’ll invite my family and friends. I’ll believe your promise. I’ll make the tea. I’ll give my testimony.’ Then, if you’ve raised the hand in your heart, come and speak to me afterwards and tell me. But more importantly, commit yourself to God and to the people you know – that you’ll glorify Christ by knowing Him and speaking of Him to others. And God will bless you richly, and His kingdom in Glasgow will advance. AMEN